Angels in Late Ancient Christianity

Ellen Muehlberger

Draws on a diverse range of sources, including Coptic, Syriac, Greek, and Latin literatures

Angels in Late Ancient Christianity

Ellen Muehlberger

Description

Ellen Muehlberger explores the diverse and inventive ideas Christians held about angels in late antiquity. During the fourth and fifth centuries, Christians began experimenting with new modes of piety, adapting longstanding forms of public authority to Christian leadership and advancing novel ways of cultivating body and mind to further the progress of individual Christians. Muehlberger argues that in practicing these new modes of piety, Christians developed new ways of thinking about angels.

The book begins with a detailed examination of the two most popular discourses about angels that developed in late antiquity. In the first, delineated by Christians cultivating certain kinds of ascetic practices, angels were one type of being among many in a shifting
universe, and their primary purpose was to guard and to guide Christians. In the other, articulated by urban Christian leaders in contest with one another, angels were morally stable characters described in the emerging canon of Scripture, available to enable readers to render Scripture coherent with emerging theological positions. Muehlberger goes on to show how these two discourses did not remain isolated in separate spheres of cultivation and contestation, but influenced one another and the wider Christian culture. She offers in-depth analysis of popular biographies written in late antiquity, of the community standards of emerging monastic communities, and of the training programs developed to prepare Christians to participate in ritual, demonstrating that new ideas about angels shaped
and directed the formation of the definitive institutions of late antiquity.

Angels in Late Ancient Christianity is a meticulous and thorough study of early Christian ideas about angels, but it also offers a different perspective on late ancient Christian history, arguing that angels were central rather than peripheral to the emergence of Christian institutions and Christian culture in late antiquity.

Angels in Late Ancient Christianity

Ellen Muehlberger

Table of Contents

AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction1. Late Ancient Theories of Angels: Evagrius of Pontus and Augustine of Hippo Compared2. Locating Christ in Scripture: Angels in the Development of Theological Reading3. Angels as Equipment for Living: The Companion Angel Tradition in Evagrian Christianity4. Crossing Over: The Companion Angel Tradition in Exemplary Lives5. Defining Others: Asceticism and the Discourse of the Angelic Life6. Bringing Angels into the World: Training the Christian Imagination with CatechesisConclusion: The Limits of AngelologyBibliographyIndex

Angels in Late Ancient Christianity

Ellen Muehlberger

Author Information

Ellen Muehlberger is Assistant Professor of Christianity in late antiquity in the Near Eastern Studies and History Departments at the University of Michigan.

Angels in Late Ancient Christianity

Ellen Muehlberger

Reviews and Awards

"This is a valuable contribution to a generally neglected area of Christian study, particularly in its stress on the importance of taking historical context into consideration." --The Journal of Theological Studies

"[This] book will be of use to those curious as to how Christians thought about angels, and the author's focus on Christian discourse will also make it useful to those interested in Christian rhetoric and self-representation following the Peace of the Church...The author's overall argument is clear and compelling...A well-written and original discussion of Christian writers' discourse on angels." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"[Muehlberger's] methodologically astute work transcends the doctrinal approaches of previous monographs... and successfully integrates social history and historical theology... elegantly written." --CHOICE

"An engaging study of how the discourse on angels both differentiated and linked diverse groups of Christians-desert ascetics and urban bishops-in late antiquity. Muehlberger argues persuasively for the importance of these discourses in the construction of late ancient Christianity and for the ways in which they differed from the angelologies of later eras."--Elizabeth A. Clark, John Carlisle Kilgo Professor of Religion, Duke University

"Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite, John Milton, and now Ellen Muehlberger have said, among them, most of what there is to be said about angels. Dionysius and Milton relied on scripture and imagination, but Muehlberger has the advantages of broad erudition, a keen intellect, and a habitual insistence on rooting what can be said about angels in history and fact. Her angels manage to be, if anything, more fascinating-and certainly more diverse-than those of the old orthodoxy. They are indebted to Ellen Muehlberger for rescuing the most exciting and exotic years of their history from historical oblivion. Her study shows how they became a fixed and surprisingly important part of the Christian imagination in the early centuries of Christianity's triumph."--James O'Donnell,
author of Augustine: A New Biography

"Ellen Muehlberger explores the role that thinking about angels played in the development of early Christian doctrine and practice. Muehlberger shows that Christian views about these beings changed in many ways in late antiquity. She uses the role that conceptualizing angels played in the early Christian communities as a lens through which to see how and why the theology of the church evolved as it did, how various institutions were justified, and how social roles were construed. In this way Muehlberger is able to offer a unique and important perspective on how the once-persecuted Christian community became an established presence in the late Roman world."--Elizabeth Digeser, Chair, Department of History and Professor of Roman History, University of California, Santa
Barbara